The only word that describes this is unreal...Best TTM Auto ever

This blog, and my current venture into card collecting, probably wouldn't have started if not for my love of awesome names.  As a plain named member of society, I've always been a fan of sports stars whose names were a tad bit unusual.  I can't remember when my fascination truly started, but I do remember the first name that really made me go wow...that's a name.  It came from NFL 2K for the Sega Dreamcast...I was 13.

Yes NFL2K, a new breed of football game that got me hooked, mostly because my brothers had the N64 and PS in their rooms and I was left with the "crappy" system (which has looked better as time has gone by, with solid sports titles, Crazy Taxi, Sega Marine Fishing, and other titles to its credit).  I played a lot of seasons of this game, and it's the first game where I really went into full blast build-your-own-team-via-free-agency-and-trades mode.  And the one guy that always made my team was a speedy backup defensive back for the Lions known as Kywin Supernaw.

I don't know if it was his ratings or the name that originally stuck out, but I thought his name was pretty cool and from them on I was a fan (in the same way I became a video game fan of other guys like Brad Banks, Seneca, Tyronn Lue, and others).  So I followed his career casually until he retired, and then promptly forgot about him like NFL2K and the Dreamcast itself.  But the love of awesome names never died.

Well years later I start collecting goofy names and whatnot, and I spent a lot of time looking for cards of my video game stars of old.  Many had cards but a few didn't, including Mr. Supernaw, and a few years ago I remedied that by trading some vintage to Condition: Poor in return for him making me some custom cards.  They all came out great and Supernaw finally had a card (along with some other awesomely named peers), and all was well.

So things were already awesome, but someone mentioned (either here or on Blowout) how it would be cool to someday get some of these signed ttm (or otherwise).  I agreed, FANTASTIC idea, but there guys didn't even have cards, let alone a substantial fan following...outside of emailing teams how would I ever contact them?  So I threw that idea in the "could be nice someday" pile and went about my collecting life.

Well about a month ago on Blowout, some guy messaged me saying he was my thing about Kywin Supernaw (I think I posted the custom set on there or something).  Said he actually went to school with Kywin, and would love to try to put me in touch if a friend of his knew him or anything.  I said cool and we became Facebook friends so I could watch his all call to friends on Facebook asking for help.  A few guys reminisced about the old times, and another mentioned that Kywin was on another very popular social networking site and that I could maybe contact him through that.  Seemed crazy but worth a shot, so I sent a friend request, expecting to be ignored.  But nope, a few days later we were friends.  CRAZY!

I upped the ante...messaged him saying something like hey thanks, great to be friends with a fellow IU alum, followed your career a bit, yada yada.  He said something like "np, thanks."  Seemed like I hadn't totally weirded him out (because after all this whole ttm thing can get pretty dang weird), so I messaged him a few days later with the ultimate request - if I sent him my custom card in the mail with postage paid would he return it signed?  Again expected an ignore or a weirded out no, but instead got a "sure, np" and an address.  SUCCESS!

I mailed it off the next day, and immediately regretted not sending a writing implement.  After all, the pic for the custom is pretty busy, and different colors would clash more with the background.  All that worry went away when I saw my own handwriting in the mailbox about 6 days later.  And even though the sig does blend a bit with the background in pictures/scans, it actually looks very awesome in person (feel free to zoom if you can):

Pretty sweet piece if you ask me, and the only Kywin Supernaw autograph I've ever seen (certainly only on card since I have his only card), so it'll always hold a pretty special place in my collection.  I was definitely surprised by his generosity and kindness in agreeing to the auto instead of shooing me like the psycho card collector I probably looked like.  Maybe someday I'll try to track down the other guys from my custom Slanko set, but for now I'm just excited to have an autograph from the guy who started it all - thanks Kywin (and Blowout guy for pointing me in his direction, and Sean for making the card)!